EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GSL/2024/codes2/ro8groupbresults.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GSL/2024/codes2/ro4bracket_1.png)
by Wax
Season 2's trend of upsets continued into the RO8, as Group B delivered the huge surprise of
Creator advancing over last season's runner-up herO. Not only did Creator win a semifinals ticket, but he did so with flying colors by beating both herO and Dark to take first place in the group.The vibes were positive for Creator to start the night, as he opened with a simple win against herO after thwarting his cannon rush. He followed up with strong performance in a macro PvP, hitting a deadly mid-game attack before herO could get his 4-base economy going.
Creator then proved his win over herO was no fluke by taking down Dark 2-1 in the winners' match (Dark having taken care of business in a routine 2-0 over
DongRaeGu). Game one saw Creator get off on the right foot, force-fielding his way to victory with a two-base all-in. While Dark evened up the score in game two by nullifying Creator's Stalker-Colossus attack with Vipers, Creator came through in the clutch with a Carrier-based victory in game three.herO quickly dispatched of DRG in the losers match, setting up an unexpected decider match against Dark with the final RO4 ticket on the line. Unfortunately for herO, he showed unusually poor defense against Dark's backdoors in game one, leading to a listless defeat. He tried to tie the series with a 3-base Blink-Stalker all-in in game two, but Dark managed to barely hold out on defense and received the round-ending GG.
Code S Season 2 will conclude on Saturday, Jun 29 8:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) with Cure, Dark, Maru, and Creator playing in the RO4 and finals. The finale will be played at the AfreecaTV Colisseum, the site of finals such as Creator vs Rogue and herO vs Maru (details and ticketing info).
Recommended Games
Creator vs Dark - Winners' Match/Game 3 (VOD): Compared to the exhilarating Group A, none of the individual games from Group B stood out in terms of entertainment value. Curious fans might want to go through Creator's games to see how he pulled off two consecutive upsets. The most back-and-forth game Creator played was his third . map against Dark, where Creator ultimately survived Dark's Lurkers to win with Carriers.
Match Recaps
Initial Match #1: Creator 2 - 0 herO
Game 1 - Oceanborn (Creator win): Creator opened with a Pylon and Gateway on the low ground, while herO sent a Probe out for a cheesy Cannon rush. herO tried to force the Cannon rush in plain sight of Creator, but Creator responded decisively by pulling Probes to zap down the warping buildings. In the end, not a single Cannon finished warping in, and Creator was left with a huge tech lead that more than made up for his loss of mining time.
Creator used his tech advantage to expand and perform a bit of Zealot harass, while herO decided the only chance he had of coming back was to execute a 3-Gate Immortal all-in off of one base. Although herO's excellent micro did see him take good trades, Creator ultimately held off the all-in and forced the GG.
Game 2 - Goldenaura (Creator win): This time it was herO's turn to place his Pylon and Gateway on the low ground, while Creator went for the standard 2 Gates at the ramp. herO went for the MaxPax special and fast expanded with a Stargate, while Creator opted to just expand a bit later while going for Blink tech. While there was a bit of Stalker skirmishing and minor harassment, the two players ended up following the usual Goldenaura pattern of going up to four bases and massing ground armies.
However, there was a small but key difference between the two players, as herO took his fourth base faster and Probed up to mine it, whereas Creator took his fourth but stayed on less than 60 Probes for continued army production. This allowed Creator to hit a critical timing just before herO's economic advantage could be converted into army supply. Creator set up in an advantageous position between herO's third and fourth bases, forcing herO to funnel his troops in through a narrow choke to defend. Thus, while the army supplies were actually somewhat even (and Creator even walked into a Stasis Trap), Creator won a decisive victory in the field to complete the 2-0.
Initial Match #2: Dark 2 - 0 DongRaeGu
Game 1 - Site Delta (Dark win): The two Zergs opened with closely mirroring 3-Hatch openers for the first four minutes, after which they diverged with Dark stopping at 39 Drones for non-all-in Ling-Bane attack while DRG continued to Drone and tech up. Amusingly enough, this light attack from Dark did just enough damage to put the two players at roughly even, and they continued to progress into the Roach phase of the game as if nothing had happened.
A rather passive buildup ensued, with both players establishing their fourth bases and maxing out on Roach-Ravager. For a couple of minutes, it seemed like the non-aggression pact might last until both players were on Hive tech, but eventually Dark forced the action with a big attack. Starting with a two-prong maneuver, Dark used tunneling claws to sneakily join his forces up for a big flanking attack on one half of DRG's army. This pincer move absolutely crushed the entrapped portion of DRG's forces, and Dark flooded in reinforcements to take the game.
Game 2 - Goldenaura (Dark win): Both players decided to go along with Goldenaura's macro theme, going up to four bases and Hive tech without much incident. The action only really started when the two players needed to burn off their Roach-Ravager supply in exchange for higher tech units, and they did so in a series of 'amicable' battles.
The two Zergs went about reconstituting their forces with Hydras, Lurkers, and Vipers, after which Dark took a defensive stance while DRG went on the defensive. DRG made a surprising amount of headway into Dark's pre-spread Lurker defense, but was ultimately stalled just short of actually being able to damage Dark's expansions. Meanwhile, Dark was sneakily preparing a Nydus, and once he noticed that DRG's troops were caught in no man's land in the middle of the map, he tunneled his Lurkers right into DRG's main. Despite being up in supply at this point, DRG decided that losing his main would be too difficult to recover from and gave a very hasty GG.
Winners' Match: Creator 2 - 1 Dark
Game 1 - Post-Youth (Creator win): Creator brought a map-tailored strategy to Post-Youth, staying on two bases for an 8-Gate Chargelot-Immortal-Sentry timing with +1 attack. Dark basically got full scouting of this with his Overlords/Overseers, and it was up to him to execute on defense with Roach-Bane.
Unfortunately for Dark, his insistence on only confronting the Protoss army from one direction meant that Creator got insane value out of his Force Fields, burning though most of the Banelings before he had to commit his Zealots to battle. Once the Baneling count was whittled down, it was all too easy for Creator to take a victory by brute force.
Game 2 - Site Delta (Dark win): Creator started game two in much more conventional fashion, going Oracles into 3 base. As for Dark, he went 3-Hatch into fast Hive, teching up quickly to Lurkers and Vipers.
Unfortunately for Creator, his follow-up move of double-Robo Colossus was hard countered by Dark's tech, with Vipers coming out with plenty of time to spare against a Stalker-Colossus attack. Creator's Colossus quickly fell to Dark's abducts, and with his core tech units gone, Creator had no choice but to GG out to Dark's counterattack.
Game 3 - Oceanborn (Creator win): Undeterred by the previous loss, Creator entered game three with a similar game plan of macroing up and playing 2-Robo in the mid-game. However, this time Dark went for a strategy that played into Creator's hands, loading up for a big Hydra-Ling-Bane attack off of Lair tech. Creator easily held the line with Stalker-Colossus-Disruptor, and soon after launched an intimidating counterattack.
While Dark managed to stop Creator's counter with a beautiful Baneling surround, it didn't mean he was out of the woods. Creator's economy and tech were still untouched, and he was left playing catch-up after stalling his tech at Lair. Creator added Templars and slowly moved up to Fleet Beacon, while Dark decided to commit heavily to Lurkers once he had Hive.
Dark's first big spawn of Lurkers was effective, catching Creator during his Carrier transition and taking down an expansion for free. However, Dark over-extended with a Lurker-Nydus into a cramped expansion, which allowed Creator to clean them up cost efficiently with Immortals and Templars. Losing his heavy investment in Lurkers was the deathblow for Dark, and Creator blazed a path to victory once his ground army was paired with Carriers.
Losers' Match: herO 2 - 0 DongRaeGu
Game 1 - Alcyone (herO win): herO opened with Stargate 3-base into Glaive-Adepts, while DRG went for your usual Zerg macro start. herO went for an aggressive shade-in on top of DRG's Queens with his first round of Adepts, but a couple of clutch tranfuses allowed DRG to hold the Adepts off without taking any damage. However, herO's second wave of Adepts hit the mark, exploiting a window where DRG was just starting Roach production. A shade-in on top of Drones combined with a Stasis Ward in a mineral line wreaked economic havoc on DRG, and herO soon followed up with a frontal attack to come out victorious.
Game 2 - Site Delta (herO win): Game two opened similarly to game one, with herO going Stargate into Glaive Adepts. Once again, DRG stopped the initial wave of Adepts without taking much damage, but herO changed his follow-up by making a quicker transition into Blink-Stalkers rather than trying to attack with a second wave of Adepts. A combined Stalker-Adept force came knocking sooner than DRG expected, and the frontal attack ended the series.
Decider Match: Dark 2 - 0 herO
Game 1 - Alcyone (Dark win): herO changed up his approach from the DRG series, following up his Stargate opener with a more typical Blink-Robo style. Meanwhile, Dark set himself up to play Roach-Ravager-Ling-Bane in the midgame while teching up to Hive.
The game took a turn when Dark launched a Zergling backdoor while herO's Stalkers were out on the map, successfully killing the sole Robotics Facility at herO's third base. herO had probably been planning to go for some mid-game ground pressure, but the loss of the Robo caused him to pivot to Carrier production. This seemed like a decent idea at first, but things would quickly take a turn for the worse.
Dark initiated some more Zergling and Baneling backdoors, which at first were just a minor nuisance. However, Dark seemed emboldened by herO's somewhat slow reaction time, and started to get more aggressive with his harassment. A big Zergling backdoor through a hole in the natural wall was what really accelerated herO's demise, as his shaky defense turned soon into an utter debacle. herO suffered one of the worst collapses in recent memory, with a moderate number of Ling-Bane utterly gutting his infrastructure and forcing him to go all-in once his Carriers were out.
Dark played his advantage in a very cheeky way, producing Ultralisks to make his backdoor attacks even more devastating while he relied on Queens + Microbial Shroud to hold off the Carriers. This strategy worked exactly as he intended (although, any unit composition would have worked here), and herO was forced to GG out.
Game 2 - Site Delta (Dark win): herO reverted back to a Oracle-into-Glaives opener for game two, which Dark got a good read on and prepared for with a Ling-Bane defense. However, Dark being Dark, he wasn't just content to defend, and he looked to go for a big counterattack after holding off herO's initial Adept harass. Dark's Ling-Bane counterattack successfully cracked herO's wall and killed off some Probes, but considering the economical sacrifices Dark made, the game actually ended up in a roughly even state.
The game only settled down for a moment, as herO decided to commit to a 3-base Blink-Stalker all-in off of three bases. As for Dark, he was going for Hydra-Ling production off of a relatively low Drone count, which set up a fierce defensive battle at Dark's fourth base.
The two players engaged in a furious offense-defense sequence at the key Zerg fourth, locking them in combat for almost three consecutive minutes. For a moment, it looked like herO had broken through when Drones were pulled on defense, but it ended up being a temporary sacrifice Dark needed to finally stabilize. Once the critical mass of Stalkers was broken, the game rapidly snowballed in Dark's favor and he counterattacked to clinch his RO4 spot.
